The Dunes Club Continues To Shine

5 Things You Need To Know About The Dunes Club

By

Chris King

  on September 23, 2010 7:52 AM | Comments (0)

The Dunes Club is one of the most popular Myrtle Beach golf courses.

The Dunes Golf & Beach Club is one of the oldest and most storied Myrtle Beach golf courses. There is much to know about the Robert Trent Jones design, but here are five facts you may have been unaware of:

1. The most important Event You’ve Never Heard Of - Sure hosting the U.S. Women’s Open, the finals of the PGA Tour’s Q-School and the Senior Tour Championship were significant moments for the Dunes Club and Myrtle Beach, but arguably the most important event the course hosted is one most people have never heard of. From 1954 to 2005, the Dunes Club hosted the final round of the Golf Writers Association of America tournament. Always held the weekend before the Masters, the event attracted the nation’s best and most influential golf writers, who then spread the gospel of Myrtle Beach golf on the pages of their magazines and newspapers. The GWAA event is often credited with helping grow Myrtle Beach’s reputation as a golf destination.

2. Waterloo – The 13th hole is Myrtle Beach’s most famous. Known as Waterloo, the 590-yard, par 5 plays alongside Lake Singleton and has been ranked as one of America’s best 18 holes by Sports Illustrated. There is a plaque on the tee box memorializing the 27 (no, that’s not a typo) a player made on the hole in the aforementioned GWAA event. Making the number even more stunning, the guy never lost a ball.

3. You Don’t Like the Dunes Club More Than …- No one has enjoyed more high level success at the Dunes Club than Gary McCord. Now known more for his work at CBS Sports, McCord earned his PGA Tour card at the Dunes Club in 1973 and won the Senior Tour Championship in 1999. The Dunes Club provided a pair of nice bookends to his career.

4. The Dunes Club Was Founded Where? – The second oldest Myrtle Beach golf course, the Dunes Club was founded in a meeting at Chapin Cabin, an old fishing hut located just yards from the nearby Atlantic. Chapin Cabin was located on what is now the 11th tee.

5. Design Counts – The Dunes Club is an old-school design with its rolling fairways, large greens complexes, and the premium it places on shot-making. While the course has ample length, distance isn’t the key to success. Hitting the ball to the right spot in the fairway can generate extra roll and a preferred angle into the green. The course opened in 1949 and the still plays as Jones intended, a testament to the quality of his work.